Rumored for a mid-February release, we certainly did not expect to see Nvidia's GTX 750 Ti listed so early but it appears that Hungarian retail/e-tail shop jumped the gun and shortly listed ASUS GTX 750 Ti graphics card for 50,000 HUF, or around US $225.

Although there are not many details or the actual picture, the listed graphics card packs 2GB of GDDR5 memory, comes from ASUS and bears the GTX750TI-OC-2GD5 model name, which suggest that it is a factory-overclocked version. This also means that Nvidia most likely plans to give a green light on factory-overclocked and possibly, custom design, graphics cards from day one, which is always a good thing.

The price of 50,000 HUF, or around US $225, sounds a bit too steep, especially considering earlier rumors that the GTX 750 Ti fits between the GTX 650 Ti Boost and the GTX 660 in terms of performance, not between the GTX 660 and the GTX 760 as expected.

The GTX 750 Ti should be the first graphics card from Nvidia based on an all-new Maxwell GPU, so it will be quite interesting to see what kind of performance we can expect from Maxwell.

The upcoming Maxwell-based GTX 750 Ti is rumored to be coming in February and now we have some of the first alleged performance numbers coming from the Coolarer.com. Expected to be positioned between the GTX 660 and the GTX 760, it appears that the upcoming GTX 750 Ti might actualy end up slower than the GTX 660 and fit in-between the GTX 650 Ti Boost and the GTX 660.

While these performance numbers should be taken with a grain of salt, considering that they done with early version of the driver, the fact that the GTX 750 Ti ends up anywhere between 10 to 15 percent slower in Futuremark's 3DMark, Unigine Valley and Final Fantasy XIV games, definitely does not sound good.

Of course, we are still missing precise specifications as well as more details regarding the GTX 750 Ti and we will hopefully see more as we draw closer to the rumored February launch date.

Nvidia is already responding to AMD’s new Radeons with a couple of price cuts of its own.

The GTX 660 MSRP has been slashed to $179, while the GTX 650 Ti Boost is now priced at $149 and $129 for the 2GB and 1GB models respectively.

Interestingly, Anandtech reports Nvidia officially reiterated that these are the only price cuts, which means the GTX 760, GTX 770 and the rest of the 700-series line-up won’t be seeing price cuts anytime soon.

It is a rather interesting decision on Nvidia’s part. It basically confirms what we said a couple of weeks ago. AMD’s competitively priced R7 products and the $199 R9 270X spell trouble for Nvidia in this high-volume market segment, but Nvidia still feels it can compete in the $200 to $400 range.

We are not sure that it can, at least not in the long run. Although the R9 280X is a rebrand, it’s still got a very competitive price and it’s no slouch, either. Besides, AMD is expected to introduce a few non-X models to fill the gaps, although there is no timetable for this rollout. For now, the pressing issue for Nvidia is to make its sub-$199 products a bit more competitive. Although it says GTX 700 products will not get a price cut, we can only assume that it is a matter of time before they do.

Nvidia has officially launched its newest mid-range graphics card in order to counter the recently launched AMD Radeon HD 7790.

The GTX 650 Ti Boost is based on the same GK106 Kepler GPU as the GTX 650 Ti and the GTX 660, the new card features 768 CUDA cores, 64 texture units 24 ROPs, works at 980MHz base and 1033MHz boost clock and will be available with either 1 or 2GB of GDDR5 memory clocked at 6008MHz and paired up wtih a 192-bit memory interface.

By launching two versions with 1GB or 2GB of memory, Nvidia manages to battle both the HD 7790 1GB graphics card in the US $149 range as well as the Radeon HD 7850 2GB in the US $169 price range. Few days earlier, or to be precise on Friday, when we wrote about the GTX 650 Ti Boost, Nvidia planed, or at least told its partners, that the GTX 650 Ti Boost 2GB will go after the HD 7850 and thus should be priced accordingly at around US $189, but a few days later, Nvidia decided to drop the price down to US $169 in order to better cope with AMD's offering. These prices make the GTX 650 Ti Boost 1/2GB quite a decent match for AMD's offerings on both fronts, but we'll get to details a bit later.

Performance and specification wise, the GTX 650 Ti Boost has a lot more to do with the GTX 660 rather than the GTX 650 Ti. The GTX 650 Ti Boost 2GB on average, depending on the game and the benchmark, certainly breathes down the HD 7850 2GB neck and is even slightly faster in some if not most scenarios. Unfortunately, Nvidia did a clever thing and most if not all sites are doing the GTX 650 Ti Boost 2GB review and compare it to the HD 7790 which honestly does not sound fair as we are not talking about the same price range.

Judging by the slides that we saw earlier, Nvidia certainly wanted to go after the HD 7850 and the HD 7790 now simply sounds like collateral damage. Unfortunately, prices go up and down and we are sure that AMD has at least some room to adjust their pricing and offer great value with those bundled games.

Currently, as far as we can see, the HD 7850 2GB sells for around US $180 with various rebates at Newegg.com which makes it about US $10 more expensive than the GTX 650 Ti Boost 2GB. The HD 7790 1GB should be selling for US $149.99 which is pretty much what Nvidia wants for the GTX 650 Ti Boost 1GB graphics card.

In Europe, the GTX 650 Ti Boost 2GB should go for €149 for the 1GB and €169 for the 2GB version. A quick check of our favorite EU price search engine reveals that you can actually buy the HD 7850 2GB graphics card for about the same amount of money and, of course, the HD 7790 1GB also is pretty much in line with the GTX 650 Ti Boost 1GB €149.

We have yet to see a GTX 650 Ti Boost 1GB review but judging from these first GTX 650 Ti Boost 2GB reviews, AMD's HD 7790 will certainly be in trouble and we are quite sure that they will justify it with the Never Settle Reloaded bundle that adds Bioshock Infinite game coupon. Same thing can be applied to the HD 7850 and the GTX 650 Ti Boost 2GB, as although it does come on top, performance wise (in some if not all situations), AMD can easily say that their card has more value thanks to the bundle, which in this case adds both the Bioshock Infinite and Tomb Raider games.

Sparkle has announced a new graphics card that will be a part of its top-notch Calibre series, the Calibre X660 Dual Fan graphics card.

Based on Nvidia's Geforce GTX 660 the Calibre X660 features 960 CUDA cores and works at 1059MHz base and 1124MHz Boost GPU clocks. It comes with 2GB of GDDR5 memory clocked at 6008MHz and paired up with a 192-bit memory interface.

The main feature of the new Calibre X660 Dual Fan is its impressive Dual Fan cooler that uses three 6mm heatpipes cooled by dual silent PWM fans. According to Sparkle, the Dual Fan cooler will provide up to 15°C lower temperature when compared to the reference one. It also comes with standard two DVI and two HDMI outputs.

Unfortunately, Sparkle did not reveal the price or the actual availability date but we expect it to show up pretty soon with a price tag of around €220.

So far, Nvidia launched two cards based on the GT106 GPU – the GTX 660 and GTX 650 Ti. Our today’s guest is the GTX 660 Ultra Charged graphics card, which should provide for pleasant gaming at 1080p. Although we’re reviewing the GTX 660, we think it’s important to explain why the same GPU isn’t as fast on the GTX 650 Ti as on the GTX 660.

The GTX 660 packs 960 CUDA cores, while the GTX 650 Ti has 768. The GTX 660’s GPU clock is 980MHz while the GTX 650 Ti’s stands at 925MHz.

The GTX 650 Ti’s GPU is a cut down version that has less ROPs and texture units than the GTX 660’s – 16 vs. 24 ROPs and 64 vs. 80 texture units, respectively.

Additionally, the GTX 650 Ti doesn’t feature GPU Boost technology that would automatically overclock the GPU, which can be found on the GTX 660. The GTX 660’s reference Base clock is 980MHz, but the GPU overclocks to 1033GHz+ when there’s thermal and power headroom.

The GTX 660 also has a bandwidth advantage, since it has three 64 bit memory controllers (192-bit memory interface) and 144GB/s bandwidth. The GTX 650 Ti has two 64-bit memory controllers (128-bit memory interface) and 86.4GB/s bandwidth.

The picture below shows Point of View / TGT GTX 660 Ultra Charged graphics card that has a factory overclocked GPU and memory.

The card you see belongs to LLS series (Low Leakage Selection). This implies that the Ultra Charged’s LLS GPU should deliver superior auto-overclocking compared to the standard GTX 660. In other words, the Ultra Charged’s clock distribution should beat that of regular GPUs found on the rest of the GTX 660 pack. Of course, TGT’s tuning utility, aptly named Big Bang, will be of much help in this task. In case you didn’t know, the utility was developed by TGT exactly for this reason – making LLS chip selection easier, and you can find it, here.

We like the packaging Point of View / TGT started using for the GTX 660/650 series, as it’s smaller than what the company uses for faster cards, but still tough enough. Nvidia made a rule that every package should have the card’s name on the side of the box, which should help customers and retailers find the right card easier.

Point of View / TGT included only a driver CD and user guide for setting it up.

The Ultra Charged (UC) cooling is dual slot, just like the reference solution. Reference cooling employs radial, so called blower style fan, that pushes the air through the heatsink, dissipating heat from the GPU outside the case through the slits in the bracket. The UC’s cooler has two axial-flow fans. So, we’re talking about open type of cooling, where fans are positioned over and blow at the heatsink. This also means that hot air stays inside the case.

True, the reference card pushes air out of the case, and it may cause some to worry about their computer overheating, but there’s really no need to. Namely, the GK106 GPU doesn’t get very hot and your computer won’t really notice this change. Besides, it’s nothing that a few quality intake fans wouldn’t effectively nullify, and then some.

The cooler looks well made. The framework holding the fan is made of metal, which definitely looks better than plastic. However, the main part of the cooling is the heatsink, which stretches the entire length of the PCB.

The cooler has many screws, which suggested taking the card apart will be a lengthy procedure, but we were surprised how quickly it can be done. The cooler is old school, for lack of a better word, where the cooling shroud is held in place with easily detachable clips.

The cooler fins, as well as the aluminum plate, are tough and massive. The wide channels between the fins provide for quality airflow from the axial fans. The heatsink is one slot wide, but the fan takes up another.

One fan is connected via four wires, while the other has three. However, Colorful gathered them into a single cable with four wires and routed it to the PCB. The fans in question are sleeve bearing fans CF-12815S, DC 12V, max 0.28A, that we haven’t seen before. RPM readouts are possible, as well as manual or automatic fan control.

The cooler has no heatpipes but instead relies on the large copper base. The base isn’t limited to the part above the GPU, which is usually the case, but instead covers a large part of the heatsink, in order to boost performance. The heatsink is one slot wide, but the fan takes up another.

Taking off the main heatsink revealed a smaller one that provides cooling for the voltage regulation circuitry. Power circuitry on GTX 660s PCB is towards the end of the PCB, exactly the opposite of how it was implemented on GTX 670 and GTX 660 Ti cards.

Nvidia’s specs require one 6-pin power connector since the card’s TDP is 140W. The connector is in the top corner, at the end of the card, and it’s turned upwards so that the cooler extension doesn’t get in the way when plugging the cable in.

The GTX 660 has a single SLI connector, which is usual for this price segment. So, it’s possible to boost performance and use two cards in SLI mode, but not more than that. The GTX 650 Ti doesn’t feature SLI support, whereas the GTX 660 Ti supports 3-way SLI.

The PCB is 17.3cm in length but the cooler extended the GTX 660 UC’s length to exactly 20cm. The rest of GTX 660 cards that use reference blower style cooling are 24.3cm.

GTX 660 UC packs a total of 2GB of Samsung’s GDDR5 memory, in eight memory modules. Four of the modules are placed on the back. The memory doesn’t require cooling, which is pretty much confirmed by the factory overclock.

If you like plenty of video outs on your graphics card, then you should know the GTX 660 UC offers the full deal. The card can drive up to four displays simultaneously, two via dual-link DVI outs, one standard HDMI and standard DisplayPort.

On 13th of September, when Nvidia launched the GTX 660, we had two cards – one by EVGA and one by Point of View/TGT. Unfortunately, PoV/TGT’s card was incompatible with EVGA's X79 FTW motherboard we use for our tests. EVGA says the culprit is the UEFI BIOS on GTX 660 UC graphics card, which apparently has compatibility issues with some motherboards including X79 FTW.

So, we had to find an alternative method for testing the GTX 660 Ultra Charged. The GTX 660 UC ran well on EVGA X58 FTW3 motherboard, where we compared it to EVGA's GTX 660 SuperClocked.

NOTE: Incompatibility was fixed with the new BIOS update for X79 FTW, so we’ll soon refresh our results. However, the short test we’re showing you will still paint a good picture of the GTX 660 Ultra Charged’s performance.

Below you see the pictures of the cards and a GPUZ screenshot.

Apart from the GTX 660 UC’s clocks, another thing that sets it apart from the GTX 660 Super Clocked is cooling. TGT opted for dual fan cooling, whereas the EVGA card comes with modified reference single fan cooling.

We tested Crysis 2 using Adrenaline Benchmark Tool and Borderlands 2 using FRAPS. We had PhysX effects on in Borderlands 2. Since we had two GTX 660 UC cards, we used them for SLI tests.

The GTX 660 UC beat the GTX 660 SC with a small advantage in Crysis 2. The difference is entirely on paper, because it wasn’t noticeable during gaming.

We needed some SLI juice for gaming at 2560x1600. SLI improved the score by 56 percent at 1920x1080, i.e. 88 percent at 2560x1600.

Crysis 2 @ Ultra 16xAf/4xAA

1920X1080

2560x1600

GTX 660 UC

60,5

32,7

GTX 660 UC SLI

94,5

61,5

GTX 660 SC

59,7

32,4

We turned on PhysX in Borderlands 2, since we’re comparing two Nvidia cards. We must say that many parts of the game looked much better with PhysX on.

Borderlands 2 @ max PhysX ON

1920x1080 min FPS / avg FPS

GTX 660 UC

42 / 63

GTX 660 UC SLI

49 / 83

GTX 660 SC

40 / 60,8

The GTX 660 UC is tough enough to handle 1920x1080 with or without PhysX in Borderlands 2. CPU will be of great importance here, because the game is significantly CPU limited. Users with quad core will benefit from this greatly.

As far as SLI scaling goes, we’re not thrilled with Borderlands 2 at 1920x1080. We didn’t do the 2560x1600 test, but we supposed that SLI will provide better results once one card is out of juice.

You can check out the GTX 660 SC review, here, and see how the GTX 660 does against the competition.here,

The UC boasts “Low Leakage Selection” GPUs so we checked it out with the recently launched GPU management utility Big Bang, which shows clock distribution during auto-overclocking.

The highest GPU Boost clock on the GTX 660 UC was 1189MHz, while the GTX 660 SC’s was 1124MHz. We see a 65MHz difference in auto-overclocking, whereas the Base Clock difference is 39MHz. However, the UC’s clocks vary more often than on the SC. Below you see clocks we measured after half an hour of playing Borderlands 2.

Once we tested SLI we measured even higher clocks on the second GTX 660 UC, up to 1228MHz. This means that not all LLS chips are the same either.

While it’s true that LLS GPUs had higher clocks, results clearly shows that it’s not a significant advantage. LLS GPU can of course be helpful in certain tests or attempts to max out GPU clocks.

Thermals and noise

As far as thermals and cooling performance goes, the GTX 660 UC’s cooling is slightly better than the GTX 660 SC’s, but when it comes to silence, it didn’t do as well. The GTX 660 UC’s fans can be heard upon starting the game, while the GTX 660 SC remained inaudible almost the entire time.

GTX 660 Ultra Charged

GTX 660 Super Clocked

The Ultra Charged draws slightly more than the Super Clocked, but it’s to be expected with the higher clocks.

Power Consumption (the whole system)

Peak Value

GTX 660 UC

289

GTX 660 SC

286

GTX 660 UC SLI

409

Nvidia recently launched the GTX 660 that has what it takes for gaming at 1920x1080. The GTX 660 currently goes for about €200. Point of View / TGT GTX 660 Ultra Charged comes with a high factory overclock that upped the GPU by about 10 percent. At the same time, its price is higher than the price of reference cards by the same amount.

GTX 660 Ultra Charged is only 20cm, supports up to four displays and SLI. Its Low Leakage Selection GPU showed superior auto overclocking capability than the average GPU.

We’re convinced that better cooling would’ve provided for superior auto overclocking results, and remains the only thing we’d change on this card. Although it’s a dual slot fan cooler, its performance to noise ratio is not as balanced as we expected it to be. The fans are never too loud, but can be heard soon after starting a game. The GTX 660 doesn’t require extreme cooling and we’ve already seen a few silent GTX 660s.

On 13th of September, when Nvidia launched the GTX 660, PoV/TGT’s GTX 660 UC card was incompatible with EVGA's X79 FTW motherboard we use for our tests. Note that EVGA’s latest BIOS update for X79 FTW fixes incompatibility with the GTX 660 UC.

Apart from fierce competition from the likes of HD 7870, many older Nvidia cards can be found priced at about €200 and provide for pleasant 1080p gaming.

Buying a GTX 660 is definitely not a wrong choice, because we’re talking about a Kepler based graphics with good performance/watt ratio and quad display support. At the same time, if you end up wanting more, another card is always an option.

Once the GTX 660 and GTX 650 were out, a glance at the performance gap suggested there is a good chance Nvidia will fill it with another card. Today, Nvidia launched its new – GTX 650 Ti, so the company’s offer now lists (top to bottom):

The GTX 650 Ti is based on Nvidia’s Kepler GK106 GPU, first seen on the recently launched GTX 660. In its full version, the GK106 GPU packs five SMX units with 960 CUDA cores, 24 ROPs and 80 texture units. In case of the GTX 650 Ti, four SMXs are used, offering a total of 768 CUDA cores and 64 texture units.

Unfortunately, the memory took a hit as well and the GTX 650 Ti has a mere 128-bit memory interface, unlike the GTX 660’s 192-bit. Note that the design allows for both 1GB and 2GB versions of the card.

The GTX 650 Ti’s playing field should be 1080p (1920x1080). Our today’s guest is one of the faster GTX 650 Ti samples that comes with 2GB of memory as well – EVGA’s GTX 650 Ti SSC 2GB.

Reference GPUs tick at 925MHz. The GTX 660’s reference GPU clock was at 980MHz when it launched, but many partners overclocked it beyond 1GHz. We expected the same this time around and EVGA did not disappoint.

Although the GK 106 GPU originally supports GPU Boost, the cut down version on the GTX 650 Ti doesn’t have it. This is proof enough that the card comes from GTX 650, rather than GTX 660 series. This also means the card always runs at its highest possible clock, which is 1072MHz in SuperSuperclocked's world.

· Most EVGA products now carry a 3 Year Warranty, which can be extended to 5 or 10 years (upon registration, and a small fee starting from approx €8 dependent upon the price of the product)

· The product warranty covers the product, not the user. (So in short, this means an end user could sell the product on an online auction site, for example, and the product will still be covered within the 3 Year Warranty period.)

· Registration is no longer required for RMAs with our Guest RMA process.

· The Step-Up Program and Extended Warranties will be available for all original owners registered with the new global RMA system within 30 days of the purchase.

· If you move, you can send your product back to your local warranty centre no matter what region you purchased it in.

· A new Standard Cross-Shipping RMA service is available.

Assassin's Creed III

EVGA’s GTX 650 Ti 1GB variants (for retail/etail/SI) are bundled (via a code) with the full PC version of Assassin's Creed III.

We like the packaging EVGA started using for the GTX 660/650 series, as it’s smaller than what the company uses for faster cards, but still tough enough. Nvidia made a rule that every package should have the card’s name on the side of the box, which should help customers and retailers find the right card easier.

EVGA included a molex-to-6-pin converter, DVI-to-VGA dongle, driver CD, EVGA badge, user guide and a few papers with advice for setting it up.

The GTX 650 Ti SSC is the shortest Kepler based card so far. It couldn’t have been made shorter because of the PCI Express connector length.

The PCB is only 14.5cm long, which is about the length of the cooler shroud.

The picture below shows the GTX 660, which also uses the GK106 GPU. Its PCB is 17.3cm long while the cooler measures 24.3cm together with the shroud. The GTX 650 has a TDP of 110W, which is 30W less than the GTX 660. Nvidia allows smaller coolers, i.e. GTX 650 designs, and EVGA took them up on this offer.

EVGA GTX 650 Ti SSC looks pretty much identical to the GTX 650 SC, or any other EVGA GTX 650 for that matter.

The card has dual slot cooling that relies on a single down-draft 80mm fan. The shroud isn’t completely closed up but at least has no exhausts between the fan and I/O panel, so at least some hot air will exit the case.

The GTX 650 Ti draws power via one 6-pin connector, just like the GTX 650, although the latter’s TDP is mere 64W.

The fan is part of the shroud. Taking off the shroud reveals a circular heatsink.

Two phases are left for the GPU while another one, towards the top of the PCB, was left for the memory.

The heatsink is one slot wide, but the fan takes up another.

GTX 650 Ti supports triple displays straight out of the box. This is why the I/O panel has two dual link DVIs and a mini-HDMI out. EVGA threw in a DVI-to-VGA dongle as well.

EVGA changed the texture work on the shroud and since it’s now smooth and without holes, it will not gather dust as much. While the likes of EVGA’s GTX 680 Signature 2 are visually more appealing, they’re quick to collect dust and harder to clean.

Playing at 1920x1080 was pleasant enough, but the card loses pace once the filters are on. The difference between EVGA GTX 650 Ti and GTX 660 is more evident when antialiasing is in the game. In fact, turning on antialiasing clearly separates GTX 650 (Ti) from GTX 660 (Ti) and it’s clear this isn’t a card built to handle antialiasing at 1920x1080.

Unigine Heaven

We used PrecisionX tool, which of course supports the GTX 650 Ti. To mark the launch, EVGA even made the new skin, picture below.

Despite the already high factory overclock (147MHz over reference 925MHz) 650 Ti SSC can be overclocked even further. Additional 50MHz may not sound that impressive, but giving the memory a 150MHz boost gave a 7 percent performance bump. Although memory specs say 1500MHz, EVGA decided to stick with the reference 1350MHz.

Fan speed can be controlled but all the tools we ended up using read the RPM in percentages only. The fan didn’t exceed 23 percent RPM during gaming. Once we pushed it to 40 percent, we could hear it well and 100% ended up being very loud. Note however that there will be no need to mess with fan speed, because AUTO mode runs just fine and delivers a good cooling-to-noise ratio.

GPU went up to 66°C, which is solid enough and the card is inaudible quiet when idle. The only thing that bothered us a bit was the operating noise from somewhere inside the PCB – it wasn’t too loud but we could faintly hear it from inside the case.

As you can see from the graph below, overclocking didn't result in more noise. The fan remained quiet but the GPU temperature did climb to 72°C.

Power consumption is already good, and even better considering the high factory overclock on the EVGA GTX 650 Ti SSC 2GB.

In general, EVGA GTX 650 Ti SSC is a good graphics card that runs well, consumes little, stays quiet and doesn’t get very hot. In turn, simple cooling was sufficient to keep the card cool. Consumption-performance ratio is exceptionally good. The only thing we did not like was the operating noise in question which resembles a faint squeal of sorts, a high pitched tone.

The card is sufficient for 1080p gaming, unless you’re absolutely bent on maxing out all the settings. Once you put the GTX 650 Ti’s price and its 1920x1080 performance in perspective, you’ll see that it ranks slightly lower than the competing Radeon HD 7850.

EVGA offers the GTX 650 Ti in 2GB and 1GB flavors, where the former costs some €10 more. If you’re a fan of Assassin’s Creed 3, then you should know that EVGA bundles this game in certain regions with their GTX 650 Ti 1GB card.

The GTX 650 doesn’t support SLI, but offers three video outs that can be used simultaneously. When compared to the competition, EVGA GTX 650 Ti SSC 2GB would come really close to the HD 7850, but not close enough to take it down.

In the end, let’s talk cash – the GTX 650 Ti SSC 2GB goes for about €165, while the same card with 1GB of memory costs about €155. Radeon HD 7850 2GB goes for €175 while 1GB version costs €150. It’s pretty clear that the GTX 650 Ti has potential and a price adjustment may just turn out to be decisive in this matchup. Other than that, EVGA’s GTX 650 Ti SSC 2GB is a quality card that we’d gladly recommend to anyone, but mostly occasional gamers who like 1680x1050 or 1920x1080 and don’t fret over detail settings.

EVGA kindly provided us with its GTX 660 Superclocked 2GB whose GPU is overclocked from reference 980MHz to 1046MHz. The memory was left at reference 1502MHz (effectively 6000MHz GDDR5).

All the cards we’ve seen have custom cooling solution and although EVGA’s cooler looks a lot like the reference one, it actually received a performance boost, but we’ll talk more about that later.

GK106 is a new GPU based on Kepler architecture and specs suggest it may do well. It packs five SMX units with 960 CUDA cores, 24 ROPs and 80 texture units. The card has 2GB of GDDR5 memory and a 192-bit interface (three 64-bit memory controllers), sporting a bandwidth 144.2GB/s.

Unlike the GTX 650, GTX 660 has GPU Boost. The card’s reference Base clock is 980MHz, but the GPU overclocks to 1GHz+ when there’s thermal and power headroom. Boost clock is 1033MHz, but higher clocks are not uncommon. The GTX 660 has a 140W TDP so one 6-pin power connector did the trick. Under load GTX 660 typically draws 115W of power in most non-TDP apps.

EVGA GTX 660 Superclocked (SC) uses dual slot cooling that looks much like the GTX 660 Ti’s cooler, well the GTX 670’s to be exact. You won’t see any difference between the coolers until you take the cooler apart. It’s a blower style cooler that is two slots wide.

One glance at the power and SLI connectors will in fact confirm that we’re looking at two different cards. The GTX 660 comes with one of each while the GTX 660 Ti has two of each.

The fan was is limited to 74% RPM in order to keep noise down. No need to invent hot water - the cooler handled the card quite well. The Base clock on the Superclocked card is higher than reference, i.e. up from 980MHz to 1046MHz, but this didn’t prove too troublesome for the cooler and it ran quiet even under load.

The PCB is 17.3cm long while the card is 24.3cm, which is clear once you look at the card from the back.

Power circuitry on GTX 660 Superclocked cards is towards the end of the PCB, exactly the opposite of how it was implemented on GTX 670 and GTX 660 Ti cards. This change required a redesign of the cooler as well.

The card has a metal heatsink that cools low profile components and holds the fan as well. GTX 670/660Ti cards have a plastic extension on the card, as you can see from the picture below. The new design improved stability. The cooler uses a single heatpipe.

EVGA GTX 660Ti Superclocked

Almost all the cards we’ve tested so far used Hynix memory, but this time around it’s Samsung. The memory is model number K4G20325FD-FC03, meaning it’s GDDR5 specified to run at 1500MHz (6000MHz GDDR5 effectively). EVGA’s GTX 660 Superclocked packs a total of 2GB of GDDR5, in eight memory modules. Four of the modules are placed on the back.

The GTX 660 has a single SLI connector, which is usual for this price segment. So, it’s possible to boost performance and use two cards in SLI mode, but not more than that.

Video outs include two dual-link DVIs (only one is VGA capable) and standard HDMI and DisplayPort connectors. Note that all four outs can be used simultaneously.

We increased our Thermal Target to 110%, which is the maximum PrecisionX allows. We managed to increase GPU clock offset by additional 65MHz. Seeing as how the GPU is already factory overclocked to 1046MHz, this is quite nice. EVGA GTX 660 SC ran at maximum 1189MHz.

Note that the fan was in Auto mode throughout the test. We did speed up the fan to its maximum but that did not help gain any higher on long term stable GPU clock. We overclocked the memory by another 175MHz (700MHz effectively).

The GTX 660 Superclocked’s cooler was made using the GTX 670’s cooler as basis. EVGA improved the design by throwing in a heatpipe and cooling low profile components with a heatsink. The heatsink stretches across the entire card, which toughened the card up and provided a fan bracket at the same time.

We couldn’t hear the fan not even under heavy load. In idle it is almost inaudible.

Intensive gaming sessions saw the card go up to 81°C. We’re glad EVGA kept noise levels down by letting temperatures go slightly higher. The GPU is designed to operate safely up to 98 Celsius degrees, which coupled with GPU Boost mean there’s no danger of overheating.

If you want a cooler card you’ll have to speed the fan up manually, since it won’t go over 2100RPM in AUTO mode. The fan is limited to 74%RPM, most likely to keep the noise down. Anything beyond 74%RPM, which you’ll most certainly hear, would’ve been pointless. As you can see, increasing the fan RPM may knock the temperature to about 70°C.

Consumption

EVGA GTX 660 Superclocked is, as the name suggests, a factory overclocked card, which gives it a slight advantage over the reference GTX 660 right out of the box. For a card priced at about €220, it spews out quite nice performance at 1920x1080, in most games and with detail settings maxed out. AMD’s competitor, the HD 7870, turned out a bit faster, but it may depend on the games of choice. The GTX 660 Superclocked fared particularly well with antialiasing on and almost caught up with the GTX 660 Ti. Compared to the last generation, this is a significant performance increase.

EVGA uses dual slot cooling that looks like the reference solution but is actually tuned a bit to provide quiet operation. Although the thermals are slightly higher than we’d have liked, they’re still far from the red zone, so a worthy compromise. Our additional overclocking for the GPU and memory also went well.

EVGA GTX 660 Superclocked is a card is a great bang for buck and is sure to strike a chord with many gamers. It’s the cheapest Kepler based card that will cause serious damage and although arguably a tad overpriced, most won’t care - and rightfully so. If you’re looking for a new card to spend long winter nights with, then EVGA GTX 660 should definitely make your list.

Videocardz.com compiled a set of performance figures slide that puts the upcoming Geforce GTX 660 and the Geforce GTX 650 graphics cards against a couple of older Nvidia graphics cards as well as the AMD Radeon HD 7850 and the Radeon HD 7750.

Bear in mind that these figures are pretty much recompiled Nvidia performance slides that we seen before so a dash of salt is needed as these results are most likely the best case scenario. Of course, Nvidia generally wants the GTX 660 to compete against the Radeon HD 7870 and these two cards will be evenly matched in most scenarios, but it is always better to show that you can beat the competition, even on slides, thus you see it compared against the HD 7850. The same thing will probably happen with the GTX 650 as this one will most likely end up close to the HD 7770 but Nvidia slides put it against the HD 7750.

The slides show a set of games and in some cases the GTX 660 is anywhere between 15 and 60 percent faster than the HD 7850. Of course, the GTX 660 will not match the HD 7850 US $199.99 price tag and will most likely end up closer to the US $239.99 HD 7870 price tag so this comparison is rather useless. The same thing goes for the GTX 650, which ends up anywhere between 8 and 35 faster than the Radeon HD 7750 in a set of game benchmarks, but we honestly doubt that we will see it selling at US $99.99 Radeon HD 7750 price tag but rather somewhere closer to the US $119.99 Radeon HD 7770 price tag.

Of course, the prices of the upcoming GTX 660 and the GTX 650 graphics cards are not carved in stone and Nvidia can adjust them just a day before the launch so we will simply have to wait for September 13th.

We got a quick snip from a couple of our sources that Nvidia GTX 660 will be late by at least one day and since we were talking about the September 12th, the reason could not be more clear.

If you remember, the original launch date for the GTX 660 was previously set for September 6th and late delayed to September 12th and although most of our sources were actually baffled by the first delay. The real reason might be that there were some GTX 570 graphics card on the market somewhere that needed to be rid of, but that is something that we will never be able to confirm.

The reason for the new one day delay is quite obvious on the other hand, as when Nvidia set the September 12th NDA date, Apple sent out its press invites for the big event that will be held on the same date. A couple of days ago we received a hint that actually looked like a recommendation rather than a change from Nvidia stating that it is better for reviews to go live on September 13th, but now it looks like Nvidia decided to change the actual NDA date and we will not see anything before September 13th, of course, unless someone decide to break the NDA.

The samples of the GTX 650 on the other hand are not to be sent before September 12th, according to our source, and the main reason as we have not seen any early preview leaks is actually the fact that Nvidia is holding the actual driver hostage and it will not see the light of day before September 12th. You might have the card but the final driver is nowhere to be seen.

Of course, to launch a new product on the same date when Apple plans to have its own event is something that probably no company will ever do as it simply does not make any sense, and Nvidia is no different.

As noted, you can expect the GTX 660 wide availability and a bunch of reviews on September 13th. Currently, Nvidia set the GTX 660 price at around US $200 for a standard one while some OC and custom editions could go a bit higher, but as always, Nvidia can change the price pretty easily.